Virgin Australia Signs Expanded Agreement with Sabre

(24 May 2022, 10:55 +07)  Virgin Australia has signed an expanded agreement with Sabre that will enable the airline to make the most of Sabre’s Dynamic Availability solution, identifying ways to unlock greater value as it continues to scale up operations.

The new deal is another step in Virgin Australia’s technological advancement and follows an earlier agreement between the two companies which will see the carrier also migrate to Sabre’s Revenue Optimizer tool, enabling a 360-approach to forecasting, analyzing and optimizing revenue streams by providing real-time visibility into the total revenue of every flight, market, and departure date.

Virgin Australia Boeing 737-8FE reg: VH-YFF

“Staying on top of today’s evolving schedules, prices and capacity is increasingly challenging in the current travel marketplace, so it’s essential that we have the right technological tools to enable intelligent decision-making based on up-to-the-minute market insights,” said Virgin Australia Group Chief Commercial Officer, Dave Emerson. “Using Dynamic Availability, our team can actively sense and respond to market conditions with optimized pricing and leverage this in a competitive way that benefits our airline and our passengers.”

Dynamic Availability empowers airlines to gain better control of their pricing position by leveraging shopping data, automating fare changes and enabling dynamic pricing capabilities. It begins by capturing traveller behaviour and price competition from the Sabre marketplace and other shopping data. Machine-learning models then use this data to generate recommendations that help drive incremental revenue opportunities.

“As a key building block for personalized retailing, Sabre’s dynamic pricing engine enables airlines to optimize availability at scale and in near real time to unlock greater value in an effort to maximize revenue, and we’re thrilled to be able to support Virgin Australia as they continue to step up operations to meet strong travel demand,” said Rakesh Narayanan, Vice President, Regional General Manager, Travel Solutions Airline Sales, Sabre. “Today’s environment makes historical data forecast less reliable. Pricing and revenue management analysts are struggling to monitor real-time availability and execute manual pricing adjustments. And travellers’ today have access to a vast amount of flight options and will typically shop up to 38 times before making a purchase decision. Dynamic Availability drives dynamic pricing with intelligent recommendations based on market demand and competitive benchmarking to support the airline’s price optimization and help to ensure they are the ultimate choice for the end traveller.”

See also: Google Cloud, AI, NDC and More - Airline Retailing Interview with Darren Rickey, Sabre, Future of Airline Distribution and NDC - Interview with Yanik Hoyles, IATA and Travel Industry Interview with Kurt Ekert, President of Sabre.